A Guide to Earning Money Working From Home

There are 100's of different ways to earn money from home, some of them fairly easy & others a lot harder (this is not counting the scams, of which there are many!). One thing that you should always do if you are considering earning income from home, is to research the company, offer, type of work etc., by simply going online in Google and typing in any details you have, or even asking a question like, "information on xxx company" or "is xxx a legitimate offer". If there are any forums, blogs or sites with other people who have used the product, they will soon become evident and the feedback will be invaluable. Anyone can fall foul of the scam artists, as I nearly did recently when I saw an offer that looked to be viable, was professionally presented, involved well known names and seemed to be reasonably priced. 

However, a few minutes after having Googled the offer I found several posts & sites with dissatisfied customers from 3 or 4 different countries, telling how they had been ripped off, misled & were out of pocket by a lot of money, needless to say I took the offer no further. Any good product provider will offer a no quibble money back guarantee so check they are a reputable company & if so then you have nothing to lose by trying the product. If it is a service you are signing up for (that is to do work for someone else or similar), never part with any money, accept if there is stock involved & the employer needs a deposit to cover the cost in case you don't return any goods, equipment etc., but then there should be a clear contract stating that this is fully refundable when said product/equipment is returned & it should be a reasonable outlay. 

Beware of company's that are in effect 'selling' you products in this guise, which are then left to you to sell on, once again research on Google will reveal any likely problems. A good philosophy to adopt is "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" and then you won't fall foul of the scammers too easily.

The opportunities fall generally into 4 categories, which are:

Home working doing work of some kind for an employer from your own home

Selling products online eBay, Amazon, etc

Internet Marketing setting up a website or blog to sell your own or other peoples products whether you actually sell the product on a site or possibly incorporating Google AdSense or similar advertising and selling via links to other products

Affiliate Marketing promoting other peoples products that do not involve you handling or selling them, but give you a commission for every person you send to the affiliate website, that buys the product. This does not need a website and can be done via Google AdWords or similar when you direct the potential customer straight to the sellers website.

Other this basically covers a combinations of any of the previous categories and includes Email marketing which uses either internet or affiliate marketing but via a list of subscribers that you build up yourself to market to.

Before deciding which area you want to get involved in, remember they each have their own unique positive & negative aspects and these need to be understood before committing to anything. For instance Home Working is fairly secure and should give you a regular wage with little or no risk, but returns will be very low. Similarly, selling your own products, either on eBay or your own site involves buying & storing products up front as well as delivery requirements, with the risk that they may not sell, but the possible returns will be a lot higher, and so on. 

My particular favourite is affiliate marketing where you simply direct potential buyers to the sellers site & have no other involvement with customers, product etc., you simply refer people. I say 'simply' refer, but this involves cost on your part to advertise in one form or another to point the customers to the affiliate site, and this can be the costly and more difficult aspect.

Hopefully this has given an insight to anyone thinking of this course of action, but remember these ventures are always best started on a part time basis as they will not make you rich overnight (watch out for anyone claiming they will), and once the venture is proven and bringing in money, then you can decide whether to "sack your boss" and work for yourself full time.